Tag: australia

Are you bored with flowers, chocolates and hallmark cards for Valentine’s Day? Looking for an experience with a little ‘wow’ factor? Melbourne, with its many restaurants, hotels, galleries and theatres is the perfect playground for Valentine’s Day.

Explore Melbourne’s Art Scene

Melbourne's 'street art'

One ingenious company has come up with a tour of Melbourne’s ‘street art’. The walking tour includes good Melbourne coffee, fabulous wine and cheese and takes you into the hidden laneways and unnamed buildings harbouring some of Melbourne’s best ‘graffiti’ and ‘street art’. The tour is unique to Melbourne and is the perfect precursor to a romantic 3 course dinner or hotel stay in one of the many luxury hotels in Melbourne.

Helicopter flight over Melbourne

A Scenic Helicopter flight over Melbourne

For those with more adventurous partners, a scenic helicopter flight over Melbourne will provide the thrills you’re looking for. View the Docklands, the MCG, Rod Laver Arena, Eureka Tower and the city skyline from the air. This will be an experience your partner will be talking about for years.

For the More Traditional

If you and your partner are more the traditional types, a night at one of Melbourne’s many 5 star hotels is hard to go past. Check in early and stock the fridge with romantic foods like, oysters, seafood, chocolate and strawberries and make sure there’s a bottle of French champagne chilling on ice. Organising a couple’s massage in your room is also a great way to set the mood.

Do Something Really Different

Take the one you love to the Chill on Ice Lounge and Ski Lodge and indulge in one of their special Valentine’s Day packages. Choose from a package that includes drinks and a photo or go for the premium dinner package. The Ice Lounge is carved out of 50 tonnes of ice and kept at a constant -10 degrees Celsius. A fan forced blizzard will ensure you have to snuggle up close and what better way to warm up afterwards than in one of the nearby luxury hotels in the Melbourne CBD.

Have a Wild Time on Valentine’s Day

For the animal lover, Werribee Open Range Zoo offers open vehicle adventure tours. Set alongside the picturesque Werribee River, the tours immerse you in the sounds, smells and sights of the Savannah. You’ll be surrounded by rhinos, deer, zebras, giraffes and antelopes and only 30 minutes from the Melbourne CBD. Book dinner and some Melbourne accommodation and your animal loving partner will have the ultimate Valentine’s Day experience.

Kakadu and Arnhem Land are home to some of Australia‘s oldest occupied Aboriginal locations. Here, your eyes can soak up some earthy coloured, insect-like rock art, of patterned Emus and angular figures, painted with animal blood, clay and wood ash. Traditional art is associated with mythology relating to their dreamtime. Stories are told through images on rocks and represented through totems. Modern Aborigines often use synthetic paints on bark, taking inspiration from their ancestors’ subject matters and techniques.

The Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef

Immerse yourself in a kaleidoscopic display of colour whilst you snorkel amongst the underwater gardens of soft and hard corals. You may come across stunning starfish, sponges and marine turtles which will make you feel at one with nature.

The world’s largest system of coral reefs, dotted with around nine-hundred islands, is home to many species of fish, such as the beautiful turquoise Parrot fish, the Clown fish and Mandarin fish, whose squiggly, stripes and dots are effective camouflage in their equally vibrant environment.

Sydney Opera House

Sydney Opera House

Like a ship with billowing sails, the Sydney Opera House sits along Sydney Harbour on Bennelong Point. Jorn Utzon, a relatively unknown Danish architect, was the winner of an International competition to design a national opera house based at Bennelong in 1957. The modern expressionist building houses a number of performance venues, including; The Concert Hall, Opera Theatre, Drama Theatre, Playhouse, Studio, Utzon Room and Forecourt. Located in the concert hall is the Grand Organ, the world’s largest mechanical action pipe organ, consisting of 10,500 pipes.

The Flinders Ranges National Park

The Flinders Ranges National Park

The largest mountain range in Australia, The Flinders Ranges, stretches its vast, dusty red terrain across an area of 912 square kilometres. Eucalyptus trees and unusual rock formations dot the landscape, making it a fascinating geological area to explore. Some of the outcrops in this vicinity date back 560-million years, so there are many fossils, hidden like gems, waiting to be discovered.

Lord Howe Island

Lord Howe Island

This idyllic island in the southwest Pacific Ocean is a crescent-shaped volcanic fragment of land. A limit of 400 people is allowed onto the island at any time, due to the small size of the island and the fact that there are only 400 licensed tourist beds. If you are amongst the privileged few, why not walk barefoot around this paradise and take a look at volcanic peaks, serene lagoons and refreshing forests? Ball’s Pyramid, a needle of rock 12 miles from Lord Howe Island, was discovered by Lieutenant Lidgbird Ball at the same time as the island, in 1788.

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